The present invention relates to crop harvester headers and more specifically relates to reels for such headers.
Harvesters, such as sickle mower conditioners, for example, which use a sickle to sever the crop from the ground, use a reel to feed crop through the machine. These reels normally include a plurality of spider structures spaced across the length of the reel and supporting toothbars or pipes for oscillation at the ends of the legs of the spiders, the spiders themselves being mounted to a support axle that extends between and has its opposite ends rotatably received in bearing structures mounted to opposite side structures of the header. The axle of the reel is driven so that the teeth act to sweep standing crop across the cutterbar to be severed and then to sweep the cut crop into other devices which act to continue the flow of crop through the header. To keep the teeth in the proper orientation for sweeping first the standing and then cut crop, a first end of a toothbar guide arm is fixed to an end of each toothbar with a second end of the arm carrying a roller which is received in a somewhat D-shaped cam track mounted to the adjacent header side structure.
Mower conditioners are subject to frequent cutterbar damage due to rocks and other obstructions. Minor repair to this area of the machine is a frequent and routine part of normal operation. However, the teeth on the reel obstruct easy access to the cutterbar components when repair or adjustment is required and the arm and cam structure for guiding the teeth for properly feeding the crop prevent them from being moved out of the way.